Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(148)

He became aware of noises in the distance: the sound of the front door opening, voices. That was all right; Sylvester would take care of whoever it was.

To his surprise, the butler seemed to have been overcome by the intruder; there were raised voices and a determined step coming rapidly toward his sanctum.

“What the devil are you doing, Melton?” The door was flung open and Harry Quarry’s broad face glowered in at him.

“Writing letters,” Hal said, with what dignity he could summon. “What does it look like?”

Harry strode into the room, lit a taper from the fire, and touched it to the candlestick on the desk. Hal hadn’t noticed it growing dark, but it must be teatime, at least. His friend lifted the candlestick and examined him critically by its light.

“You don’t want to know what you look like,” said Harry, shaking his head. He put down the candle. “You didn’t recall that you were meant to be meeting with Washburn this afternoon, I take it.”

“Wash—oh, Jesus.” He’d risen halfway out of his chair at the name and now sank back, feeling hollow at mention of his solicitor.

“I’ve spent the last hour with him, after meeting with Anstruther and Josper—you remember, the adjutant from the Fourteenth?” He spoke with a strong note of sarcasm.

“I do,” Hal said shortly, and rubbed a hand hard over his face, trying to rouse his wits.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he said, and shook his head. He rose, pulling his banyan round him. “Call Nasonby, will you? Have him bring us tea in the library. I have to change and wash.”

Washed, dressed, brushed, and feeling some semblance of ability, he came into the library a quarter hour later to find the tea trolley already in place; a wisp of aromatic steam rose from the teapot’s spout to mingle with the spicy scents of ham and sardines and the unctuous sweetness of a currant sponge, oozing cream and butter.

“When’s the last time you ate anything?” Harry demanded, watching Hal consume sardines on toast with the single-mindedness of a starving cat.

“Yesterday. Maybe. I forget.” He reached for his cup and washed the sardines down far enough to make cake feasible as the next step. “Tell me what Washburn said.”

Harry disposed of his own cake, swallowed, and replied.

“Well, you can’t actually be tried in open court. Whatever you think about your damned title—no, don’t tell me, I’ve heard it.” He held out the palm of his hand in prevention, picking up a gherkin with the other.

“Whether you choose to call yourself the Duke of Pardloe, the Earl of Melton, or plain Harold Grey, you’re still a peer. You can’t be tried by anything save a jury of your peers—to wit, the House of Lords. And I didn’t really require Washburn to tell me that the odds of a hundred noblemen agreeing that you should be either imprisoned or hanged for challenging the man who seduced your wife to a duel, and killing him as a result, is roughly a thousand to one—but he did tell me so.”

“Oh.” Hal hadn’t given the matter a moment’s thought but if he had would likely have reached a similar conclusion. Still, he felt some relief at hearing that the Honorable Lawrence Washburn, KC, shared it.

“Mind you—are you going to eat that last slice of ham?”

“Yes.” Hal took it and reached for the mustard pot. Harry took an egg sandwich instead.

“Mind you,” he repeated, mouth half full of deviled egg and thin white bread, “that doesn’t mean you aren’t in trouble.”

“You mean with Reginald Twelvetrees, I suppose.” Hal kept his eyes on his plate, carefully cutting the ham into pieces. “That isn’t news to me, Harry.”

“I shouldn’t have thought so, no,” Harry agreed. “I meant with the king.”

Hal set down his fork and stared at Harry.

“The king?”

“Or, to be more exact, the army.” Harry delicately plucked an almond biscuit from the wreckage of the tea trolley. “Reginald Twelvetrees has sent a petition to the secretary at war, asking that you be brought to a court-martial for the unlawful killing of his brother and, further, that you be removed as colonel of the Forty-sixth and the regiment refused permanent re-commission, on grounds that your behavior is so deranged as to constitute a danger to the readiness and ability of said regiment. That being where His Majesty comes in.”

“Balderdash,” Hal said shortly. But his hand trembled slightly as he lifted the teapot, and the lid rattled. He saw Harry notice, and he set it down carefully.

What the king giveth, the king also taketh away. It had taken months of painstaking work to have his father’s regiment provisionally re-commissioned and more—much more—to find decent officers willing to join it.

“The scribblers—” Harry began, but Hal made a quick, violent gesture, cutting him off.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t—”

“I do! Don’t bloody talk about it.”

Harry made a soft growling noise but subsided. He picked up the pot and filled both cups, pushing Hal’s toward him.

“Sugar?”

“Please.”

The regiment—in its resurrected form—had not yet seen service anywhere; it had barely half its complement of men, and most of those didn’t know one end of a musket from the other. He had only a skeleton staff, and while most of his officers were good, solid men, only a handful, like Harry Quarry, had any personal allegiance to him. Any pressure, any hint of scandal—well, any more scandal—and the whole structure could collapse. The remnants to be greedily scooped up or trampled on by Reginald Twelvetrees, Hal’s father’s blackened memory left forever dishonored as a traitor, and his own name dragged further through the mud—painted by the scribblers of the press not only as a cuckold but a murderer and lunatic.